Having refocused its efforts towards the home virtual reality (VR) market at the beginning of the year developer Joy Way has announced several videogame projects. One of these was called Change Ranger but this has now been renamed Time Hacker as the team gears up for a launch in the next couple of months.
Remember that scene from X-Men: Days of Future Past when Quicksilver runs at such speed the entire room goes into slow-mo? Well that’s essentially the premise behind Time Hacker. You play as a hero who can temporarily stop time allowing you to diffuse dangerous situations.
That doesn’t mean pausing everything and running away. You’ve got some humanoid killer robots to deal with and innocents to save, so whilst they’re defenceless you can manipulate the environment to your benefit. This gives you time to add some choice uppercuts in, use their guns against them, trigger an explosive device or knock them into traffic. And when you’re done time returns to normal and chaos ensues.
There have been lots of tweaks and improvements to the title since its first reveal such as making all the enemies robots rather than humans, the addition of more levels as well as the mechanics getting a polish.
Joy Way is looking to launch Time Hacker for PC VR headsets like Oculus Rift, Valve Index and HTC Vive via Steam in either August or September. If you like the idea Time Hacker is currently going through closed beta testing which you can signup for here.
The studio has also informed VRFocus that it plans on supporting PlayStation VR and Oculus Quest in the future, although it wouldn’t say exactly when.
As mentioned, Time Hacker isn’t the only title Joy Way is working on. The other exciting project is Stride, a parkour-style experience which has a Mirror’s Edge feel. This is also expected to arrive in the summer. As further details arise for both projects, VRFocus will keep you updated.